Speaking before the rally began, Ms Bluett said the protest aimed to send a message to the government.

"What we're hoping is to send a very clear message to the Premier Ted Bailieu and the Minister for Skills just next door, Peter Hall, that the impact of the TAFE cuts is now obvious," Ms Bluett said.

"We've got hundreds of courses that are no longer going to be offered, campuses shut and proposals to sell off those, tens of thousands of people who will no longer have access to a TAFE courses as a pathway to employment."

Ms Bluett said today's rally and 24-hour stopwork action in Victorian TAFE colleges was just the beginning.

"We're not confident that today's rally will be the game changer but what he (Ted Bailieu) will get from today is we're determined to continue the campaign for as long as it takes.

"In particular we will be targeting Coalition politicians in rural and regional Victoria because the death of TAFE will be the death of a pathway for those students."

"We will run rallies right around rural and regional Victoria with demonstrations outside those Coalition politicians who haven't come out and said 'we support our public TAFE'."

Opposition Leader Daniel Andrews was also in the crowd at Treasury Gardens.

City of Geelong Mayor John Mitchell spoke to the TAFE workers and students in support of their cause.

Mr Mitchell said his community was facing great change and TAFE education was vital for retraining workers.

"This is the heart of what our community is about, this is taking away something that should not be taken away, the opportunity for young people to be educated," Cr Mitchell said.

A list of the regional and rural towns hit by the cuts was revealed at the rally, including Lilydale, Shepparton, Gippsland, Sale, Mildura, Orbost and Bairnsdale.

The crowd was told that the rally was the 31st protest held against the cuts since they were announced on May 1.

Earlier today, Ms Bluett released a statement calling for the Baillieu Government to reverse the $300 million funding cut.

"If the Baillieu Government does not reverse its short-sighted policies, it will deny a generation of young Victorians the chance to get the skills they need to be part of the modern workforce," Ms Bluett said in the statement.

The Victorian Government urged workers in the TAFE sector not to participate in the unprotected strike action and said TAFE institutes needed to be funded on a sustainable basis.